Meanwhile the people of Reims received tidings that King Charles was leaving Chateau-Thierry and was about to cross the Seine. Believing that they had been abandoned, they were afraid lest the English and Burgundians should make them pay dearly for the coronation of the King of the Armagnacs; and in truth they stood in great danger. On the 3rd of August, they resolved to send a message to King Charles to entreat him not to forsake those cities which had submitted to him. The city"s herald set out forthwith. On the morrow they sent word to their good friends of Chalons and of Laon, how they had heard that King Charles was wending towards Orleans and Bourges, and how they had sent him a message.[1612]
[Footnote 1612: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 98. Varin, _Archives legislatives de la ville de Reims_, Statuts, vol. i (annot.
according to doc. no. xxi), p. 741. H. Jadart, _Jeanne d"Arc a Reims_, original doc. no. 19, p. 118.]
On the 5th of August, while the King is still at Provins[1613] or in the neighbourhood, Jeanne addresses to the townsfolk of Reims a letter dated from the camp, on the road to Paris. Herein she promises not to desert her friends faithful and beloved. She appears to have no suspicion of the projected retreat on the Loire. Wherefore it is clear that the magistrates of Reims have not written to her and that she is not admitted to the royal counsels. She has been instructed, however, that the King has concluded a fifteen days" truce with the Duke of Burgundy, and thereof she informs the citizens of Reims. This truce is displeasing to her; and she doubts whether she will observe it. If she does observe it, it will be solely on account of the King"s honour; and even then she must be persuaded that there is no trickery in it.
She will therefore keep the royal army together and in readiness to march at the end of the fifteen days. She closes her letter with a recommendation to the townsfolk to keep good guard and to send her word if they have need of her.
[Footnote 1613: Perceval de Cagny, p. 160.]
Here is the letter:
"Good friends and beloved, ye good and loyal French of the city of Rains, Jehanne the Maid lets you wit of her tidings and prays and requires you not to doubt the good cause she maintains for the Blood Royal; and I promise and a.s.sure you that I will never forsake you as long as I shall live. It is true that the King has made truce with the Duke of Burgundy for the s.p.a.ce of fifteen days, by which he is to surrender peaceably the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days.
Notwithstanding, marvel ye not if I do not straightway enter into it, for truces thus made are not pleasing unto me, and I know not whether I shall keep them; but if I keep them it will be solely to maintain the King"s honour; and further they shall not ensnare the Royal Blood, for I will keep and maintain together the King"s army that it be ready at the end of fifteen days, if they make not peace. Wherefore my beloved and perfect friends, I pray ye to be in no disquietude as long as I shall live; but I require you to keep good watch and to defend well the good city of the King; and to make known unto me if there be any traitors who would do you hurt, and, as speedily as I may, I will take them out from among you; and send me of your tidings. To G.o.d I commend you. May he have you in his keeping."
Written this Friday, 5th day of August, near Provins,[1614] a camp in the country or on the Paris road. Addressed to: the loyal French of the town of Rains.[1615]
[Footnote 1614: This place name is not to be found in Rogier"s copy.]
[Footnote 1615: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 139, 140, and Varin, _loc. cit._ _Statuts_, vol. i, p. 603, according to Rogier"s copy. H. Jadart, _Jeanne d"Arc a Reims_, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, vol. xiv, pp. 104, 105, and facsimile of the original copy formerly in the Reims munic.i.p.al archives, now in the possession of M. le Comte de Maleissye.]
It cannot be doubted that the monk who acted as scribe wrote down faithfully what was dictated to him, and reproduced the Maid"s very words, even her Lorraine dialect. She had then attained to the very highest degree of heroic saintliness. Here, in this letter, she takes to herself a supernatural power, to which the King, his Councillors and his Captains must submit. She ascribes to herself alone the right of recognising or denouncing treaties; she disposes entirely of the army. And, because she commands in the name of the King of Heaven, her commands are absolute. There is happening to her what necessarily happens to all those who believe themselves entrusted with a divine mission; they const.i.tute themselves a spiritual and temporal power superior to the established powers and inevitably hostile to them. A dangerous illusion and productive of shocks in which the illuminated are generally the worst sufferers! Every day of her life living and holding converse with saints and angels, moving in the splendour of the Church Triumphant, this young peasant girl came to believe that in her resided all strength, all prudence, all wisdom and all counsel.
This does not mean that she was lacking in intelligence; on the contrary she rightly perceived that the Duke of Burgundy, with his emba.s.sies, was but playing with the King and that Charles was being tricked by a Prince, who knew how to disguise his craft in magnificence. Not that Duke Philip was an enemy of peace; on the contrary he desired it, but he was desirous not to come to an open quarrel with the English. Jeanne knew little of the affairs of Burgundy and of France, but her judgment was none the less sound.
Concerning the relative positions of the Kings of France and England, between whom there could be no agreement, since the matter in dispute was the possession of the kingdom, her ideas were very simple but very correct. Equally accurate were her views of the position of the King of France with regard to his great va.s.sal, the Duke of Burgundy, with whom an understanding was not only possible and desirable, but necessary. She p.r.o.nounced thereupon in a perfectly straightforward fashion: On the one hand there is peace with the Burgundians and on the other peace with the English; concerning the peace with the Duke of Burgundy, by letters and by amba.s.sadors have I required him to come to terms with the King; as for the English, the only way of making peace with them is for them to go back to their country, to England.[1616]
[Footnote 1616: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 233, 234.]
This truce that so highly displeased her we know not when it was concluded, whether at Soissons or Chateau-Thierry, on the 30th or 31st of July, or at Provins between the 2nd and 5th of August.[1617] It would appear that it was to last fifteen days, at the end of which time the Duke was to undertake to surrender Paris to the King of France. The Maid had good reason for her mistrust.
[Footnote 1617: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 202, 203, note 2.]
When the Regent withdrew before him, King Charles eagerly returned to his plan of retreating into Poitou. From La Motte-Nangis he sent his quartermasters to Bray-sur-Seine, which had just submitted. Situated above Montereau and ten miles south of Provins, this town had a bridge over the river, across which the royal army was to pa.s.s on the 5th of August or in the morning of the 6th; but the English came by night, overcame the quartermasters and took possession of the bridge; with its retreat cut off, the royal army had to retrace its march.[1618]
[Footnote 1618: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 325. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 99, 100. _Journal du siege_, pp. 119, 120.
Gilles de Roye, p. 207.]
Within this army, which had not fought and which was being devoured by hunger, there existed a party of zealots, led by those whom Jeanne fondly called the Royal Blood.[1619] They were the Duke of Alencon, the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Vendome, and likewise the Duke of Bar, who had just come from the War of the Apple Baskets.[1620] Before he took to painting pictures and writing moralities in rhyme, this young son of the Lady Yolande had been a warrior. Duke of Bar and heir of Lorraine, he had been forced to join the English and Burgundians.
Brother-in-law of King Charles, he must needs rejoice when the latter was victorious, because, but for that victory, he would never have been able to range himself on the side of the Queen, his sister, for which he would have been very sorry.[1621] Jeanne knew him; not long before, she had asked the Duke of Lorraine to send him with her into France.[1622] He was said to have been one of those who of their own free will followed her to Paris. Among the others were the two sons of the Lady of Laval, Gui, the eldest to whom she had offered wine at Selles-en-Berry, promising soon to give him to drink at Paris, and Andre, who afterwards became Marshal of Loheac.[1623] This was the army of the Maid: a band of youths, scarcely more than children, who ranged their banners side by side with the banner of a girl younger than they, but more innocent and better.
[Footnote 1619: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 91.]
[Footnote 1620: _Guerre de la Hottee de Pommes_, cf. vol. i, p. 92.
(W.S.)]
[Footnote 1621: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaut de Metz_ in D.
Calmet. _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. v, orig. docs., cols, xli-xlvii.
Villeneuve-Bargemont, _Precis historique de la vie du roi Rene_, Aix, 1820, in 8vo. Lecoy de la Marche, _Le roi Rene_, Paris, 1875, 2 vols.
in 8vo. Vallet de Viriville, in _Nouvelle biographie generale_, 1866, xli, pp. 1009-1015.]
[Footnote 1622: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 444. S. Luce, _Jeanne d"Arc a Domremy_, p. cxcix. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 156, note 3.]
[Footnote 1623: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 105-111.]
On learning that the retreat had been cut off, it is said that these youthful princes were well content and glad.[1624] This was valour and zeal; but it was a curious position and a false when the knighthood wished for war while the royal council was desiring to treat, and when the knighthood actually rejoiced at the campaign being prolonged by the enemy and at the royal army being cornered by the _G.o.dons_.
Unhappily this war party could boast of no very able adherents; and the favourable opportunity had been lost, the Regent had been allowed time to collect his forces and to cope with the most pressing dangers.[1625]
[Footnote 1624: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, Jean Chartier. _Journal du siege_, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 1625: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 340, 344.]
Its retreat cut off, the royal army fell back on Brie. On the morning of Sunday, the 7th, it was at Coulommiers; it recrossed the Marne at Chateau-Thierry.[1626] King Charles received a message from the inhabitants of Reims, entreating him to draw nearer to them.[1627] He was at La Ferte on the 10th, on the 11th at Crepy in Valois.[1628]
[Footnote 1626: Perceval de Cagny, p. 161. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 100. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 325.]
[Footnote 1627: Varin, _Archives legislatives de la ville de Reims_, Statuts, vol. i, p. 742.]
[Footnote 1628: Perceval de Cagny, p. 161.]
At one stage of the march on La Ferte and Crepy, the Maid was riding in company with the King, between the Archbishop of Reims and my Lord the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Beholding the people hastening to come before the King and crying "Noel!" she exclaimed: "Good people! Never have I seen folk so glad at the coming of the fair King...."[1629]
[Footnote 1629: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 14, 15. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 326.]
These peasants of Valois and of l"ile de France, who cried "Noel!" on the coming of King Charles, in like manner hailed the Regent and the Duke of Burgundy when they pa.s.sed. Doubtless they were not so glad as they seemed to Jeanne, and if the little Saint had listened at the doors of their poor homes, this is about what she would have heard: "What shall we do? Let us surrender our all to the devil. It matters not what shall become of us, for, through treason and bad government, we must needs forsake our wives and children and flee into the woods, like wild beasts. And it is not one year or two but fourteen or fifteen since we have been led this unhappy dance. And most of the great n.o.bles of France have died by the sword, or unconfessed have fallen victims to poison or to treachery, or in short have perished by some manner of violent death. Better for us would it have been to serve Saracens than Christians. Whether one lives badly or well it comes to the same thing. Let us do all the evil that lieth in our power. No worse can happen to us than to be slain or taken."[1630]
[Footnote 1630: _Journal d"un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 164.]
It was only in the neighbourhood of towns or close to fortresses and castles, within sight of the watchman"s eye as he looked from the top of tower or belfry, that land was cultivated. On the approach of men-at-arms, the watchman rang his bell or sounded his horn to warn the vine-dressers or the ploughmen to flee to a place of safety. In many districts the alarm bell was so frequent that oxen, sheep, and pigs, of their own accord went into hiding, as soon as they heard it.[1631]
[Footnote 1631: Thomas Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII_, chap. vi. A.
Tuetey, _Les ecorcheurs sous Charles VII_, Montbeliard, 1874, 2 vols.
in 8vo, _pa.s.sim_. H. Lepage, _episodes de l"histoire des routiers en Lorraine_ (1362-1446), in _Journal d"archeologie lorraine_, vol. xv, pp. 161 _et seq._ Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises_, _pa.s.sim_. H. Martin et Lacroix, _Histoire de Soissons_, p. 318, _pa.s.sim_. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _episodes de l"invasion anglaise. La guerre de partisans dans la Haute Normandie_ (1424-1429), in _Bibliotheque de l"ecole des Chartes_, vol. liv, pp. 475-521; vol. lv, pp. 258-305; vol. lvi, pp. 432-508.]
In the plains especially, which were easy of access, the Armagnacs and the English had destroyed everything. For some distance from Beauvais, from Senlis, from Soissons, from Laon, they had caused the fields to lie fallow, and here and there shrubs and underwood were springing up over land once cultivated.--"Noel! Noel!"
Throughout the duchy of Valois, the peasants were abandoning the open country and hiding in woods, rocks, and quarries.[1632]
[Footnote 1632: Pardon issued by King Henry VI to an inhabitant of Noyant, in Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, vol. i, pp. 23, 31. F.
Brun, _Jeanne d"Arc et le capitaine de Soissons_, note iii, p. 41.]
Many, in order to gain a livelihood, did like Jean de Bonval, the tailor of Noyant near Soissons, who, despite wife and children, joined a Burgundian band, which went up and down the country thieving, pillaging, and, when occasion offered, smoking out the folk who had taken refuge in churches. On one day Jean and his comrades took two hogsheads of corn, on another six or seven cows; on another a goat and a cow, on another a silver belt, a pair of gloves and a pair of shoes; on another a bale of eighteen ells of cloth to make cloaks withal. And Jean de Bonval said that within his knowledge many a man of worship did as much.[1633]--"Noel! Noel!"
[Footnote 1633: Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, vol. i, pp. 23, 31.]
The Armagnacs and Burgundians had torn the coats off the peasants"
backs and seized even their pots and pans. It was not far from Crepy to Meaux. Every one in that country had heard of the Tree of Vauru.
At one of the gates of the town of Meaux was a great elm, whereon the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Vauru, a Gascon n.o.ble of the Dauphin"s party, used to hang the peasants he had taken, when they could not pay their ransom. When he had no executioner at hand he used to hang them himself. With him there lived a kinsman, my Lord Denis de Vauru, who was called his cousin, not that he was so in fact, but just to show that one was no better than the other.[1634] In the month of March, in the year 1420, my Lord Denis, on one of his expeditions, came across a peasant tilling the ground. He took him prisoner, held him to ransom, and, tying him to his horse"s tail, dragged him back to Meaux, where, by threats and torture, he exacted from him a promise to pay three times as much as he possessed. Dragged half dead from his dungeon, the villein sent to the wife he had married that year to ask her to bring the sum demanded by the lord. She was with child, and near the time of her delivery; notwithstanding, she came because she loved her husband and hoped to soften the heart of the Lord of Vauru. She failed; and Messire Denis told her that if by a certain day he did not receive the ransom, he would hang the man from the elm-tree. The poor woman went away in tears, fondly commending her husband to G.o.d"s keeping. And her husband wept for pity of her. By a great effort, she succeeded in obtaining the sum demanded, but not by the day appointed. When she returned, her husband had been hanged from the Vauru Tree without respite or mercy.
With bitter sobs she asked for him, and then fell exhausted by the side of that road, which, on the point of her delivery, she had traversed on foot. Having regained consciousness, a second time she asked for her husband. She was told that she would not see him till the ransom had been paid.